Between Their World and Ours: Breakthroughs with Autistic Children
Autism has reached epidemic proportions. The latest studies suggest that as many as one in 150 children ages ten and younger may be affected by autism—-a total of 300,000 children in the United States alone. Adults included, there are more than a million people in the United States suffering from autistic disorders. Since autism has had a bleak prognosis, and since the isolation of autistic children is so painful to parents, Karen Zelan's accounts of her breakthroughs with autistic children in Between Their World and Ours present a particularly hopeful perspective. Zelan illustrates how diagnostic labels reflect the preconceptions and prejudices of the diagnostician, but reveal nothing about the unique person who carries the label and his potential as a human being.

Describing nine of the forty-five autists with whom she has worked, Zelan documents how psychotherapy with autistic youth helps them to overcome their problems in communicating, playing, feeling, thinking, and interacting with people more companionably. Her riveting narratives, showing her growing understanding of her young patients, capture how it is to be autistic. She describes the ways these young people meet the challenges of being the way the are. Her work demonstrates how the social context in which autistic children find themselves can make a significant difference in their development, their self-esteem, and their ability to think through problems in living.

Zelan, a gifted and intuitive psychotherapist, shows how the autist's sense of self emerges during childhood. She details how these autistic children's first friendships originate, the pitfalls and pleasures they experience in relating to their peers, their dreams, and their fears of social contact. These real-life stories reveal what worked with autistic children and why. Zelan offers prescriptive suggestions for parents and teachers based on her discoveries, demonstrating humane ways of dealing with the often troubling problems of autism and of closing the gap between their world and ours.

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Between Their World and Ours: Breakthroughs with Autistic Children
Autism has reached epidemic proportions. The latest studies suggest that as many as one in 150 children ages ten and younger may be affected by autism—-a total of 300,000 children in the United States alone. Adults included, there are more than a million people in the United States suffering from autistic disorders. Since autism has had a bleak prognosis, and since the isolation of autistic children is so painful to parents, Karen Zelan's accounts of her breakthroughs with autistic children in Between Their World and Ours present a particularly hopeful perspective. Zelan illustrates how diagnostic labels reflect the preconceptions and prejudices of the diagnostician, but reveal nothing about the unique person who carries the label and his potential as a human being.

Describing nine of the forty-five autists with whom she has worked, Zelan documents how psychotherapy with autistic youth helps them to overcome their problems in communicating, playing, feeling, thinking, and interacting with people more companionably. Her riveting narratives, showing her growing understanding of her young patients, capture how it is to be autistic. She describes the ways these young people meet the challenges of being the way the are. Her work demonstrates how the social context in which autistic children find themselves can make a significant difference in their development, their self-esteem, and their ability to think through problems in living.

Zelan, a gifted and intuitive psychotherapist, shows how the autist's sense of self emerges during childhood. She details how these autistic children's first friendships originate, the pitfalls and pleasures they experience in relating to their peers, their dreams, and their fears of social contact. These real-life stories reveal what worked with autistic children and why. Zelan offers prescriptive suggestions for parents and teachers based on her discoveries, demonstrating humane ways of dealing with the often troubling problems of autism and of closing the gap between their world and ours.

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Between Their World and Ours: Breakthroughs with Autistic Children

Between Their World and Ours: Breakthroughs with Autistic Children

by Karen Zelan
Between Their World and Ours: Breakthroughs with Autistic Children

Between Their World and Ours: Breakthroughs with Autistic Children

by Karen Zelan

Paperback(First Edition)

$29.99 
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Overview

Autism has reached epidemic proportions. The latest studies suggest that as many as one in 150 children ages ten and younger may be affected by autism—-a total of 300,000 children in the United States alone. Adults included, there are more than a million people in the United States suffering from autistic disorders. Since autism has had a bleak prognosis, and since the isolation of autistic children is so painful to parents, Karen Zelan's accounts of her breakthroughs with autistic children in Between Their World and Ours present a particularly hopeful perspective. Zelan illustrates how diagnostic labels reflect the preconceptions and prejudices of the diagnostician, but reveal nothing about the unique person who carries the label and his potential as a human being.

Describing nine of the forty-five autists with whom she has worked, Zelan documents how psychotherapy with autistic youth helps them to overcome their problems in communicating, playing, feeling, thinking, and interacting with people more companionably. Her riveting narratives, showing her growing understanding of her young patients, capture how it is to be autistic. She describes the ways these young people meet the challenges of being the way the are. Her work demonstrates how the social context in which autistic children find themselves can make a significant difference in their development, their self-esteem, and their ability to think through problems in living.

Zelan, a gifted and intuitive psychotherapist, shows how the autist's sense of self emerges during childhood. She details how these autistic children's first friendships originate, the pitfalls and pleasures they experience in relating to their peers, their dreams, and their fears of social contact. These real-life stories reveal what worked with autistic children and why. Zelan offers prescriptive suggestions for parents and teachers based on her discoveries, demonstrating humane ways of dealing with the often troubling problems of autism and of closing the gap between their world and ours.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780312313760
Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing Group
Publication date: 08/01/2004
Edition description: First Edition
Pages: 452
Product dimensions: 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Karen Zelan was trained in psychoanalytic milieu therapy at the University of Chicago's Orthogenic School. She served as a senior staff supervising psychologist at Boston Children's Hospital Medical Center and as a Harvard Medical School instructor in the department of psychiatry. She has written extensively on children's learning and is the coauthor, with Bruno Bettelheim, of On Learning to Read. She is a psychotherapist to troubled youth in Berkeley, California, where she resides with her husband. Her son and daughter, now grown, live nearby.

Table of Contents

Note to the Readerix
Prologuexi
Chapter 1The Diagnosis Is Not the Person1
Chapter 2Gregory's Journey33
Chapter 3A Meeting of Minds55
Chapter 4I Can See Me in Your Eyes93
Chapter 5From Solitude to Sociability126
Chapter 6Theory of Mind Problems152
Chapter 7Self-Revelations180
Chapter 8Risking Friendships223
Chapter 9School Days268
Chapter 10What to Do311
Chapter 11Hopes for Autistic Children357
Acknowledgments389
Notes393
References405
Index409
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